What's new(s)? Ferrari in periodicals.

I hope to see this in U.S. bookstores within about six weeks or so.

 

Marcel FYI I saw it in several Geneva newsstands Wednesday and yesterday.

 

Octane 224.
Gemballa Testarossa.

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New Edition of French Enzo, no15.

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Have any US subscribers to The Road Rat received the current issue yet? According to their web site they shipped around mid December.

 

Nope. Haven’t received mine yet.

 

Mine arrived yesterday.

 

Still waiting on mine.
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Arrived today.

 

It's now available in U.S. Barnes & Noble bookstores, and it's a nice job.

 

I do not yet have a complete set of Cavallino Magazine but I am working on it!

I have over 90% of them and (of course) all of the 16 I am missing are in the top left hand corner of the poster they issued a few years ago (i.e. numbered less than #25). As each new issue comes out I am trying to buy also one of the earlier ones that I am missing. As you can imagine, this is costly but I would never have had the chance to buy these at the time as these magazines date from the late 1970s and early 1980s. I was still at school then and had no interest in cars, never mind the cars of Ferrari. In hindsight it would have been cheaper to buy a complete set but this becomes a harder decision to make with each individual copy obtained. I have recently bought a copy on eBay from someone who I would consider to be a reputable dealer, only to find that the condition of the magazine was not great. I am therefore continuing to buy from Hortons with the associated price but with (what I consider to be) a guarantee of condition. I do not like discussing price/value but I am aware that there are many early issues still available from the publisher at more reasonable prices and the next time I visit my Brother in the US I will have been sure to order some to be delivered to him before I arrive. This will be a cheaper option but it is not worth ordering from the publisher for dispatch to the UK due to the postage rates and the taxes. The publisher has also recently "found" some previously out of print/unavailable issues and I know that this is an unsavoury topic already discussed in the book thread.

With the latest issue (#246) I also bought issue #15 which I realised, totally coincidently after they arrived, was dated Jul/Dec 1982 making these two issues 40 years apart. I hope that others who have a full set of Cavallino Magazines will understand what I am going to say next. The early issues are a massive disappointment! Issue #246 cost me £5.00 + postage. Issue #15 cost me considerably more (the cover price is $4) but is full of adverts, has fewer pages (only 56 compared to 72 in #246) and has far less useful information than in more recent editions, despite a wonderful list of contributing editors (many of whom are now deceased but still listed as contributors in #246). I have bought back issues of UK magazines such as Autosport and Motorsport from a similar era and they seem, to me, to be just as good as the later (and latest) editions.

I have some questions for fellow collectors who have bought back issues of Cavallino but particularly for those who were around at the time to buy the early issues when they were first published.

Is it just me that is disappointed by the early issues or do others feel the same?

The magazine is still going so they must have done something right but just how good was it considered to be at the time of these early issues?

I do not have easy access to all of my copies but I am sure that some have fewer pages than the 56 of #15. Was this considered acceptable at the time? Certainly all of the letters published in these early editions are more than complimentary and bordering on fawning.

I do want to complete my set but unfortunately I expect to continue to be disappointed with each of the early issues I buy, especially at the price I am having to pay. I am interested in the content (or lack of!) and so would be more than happy if the publisher decided to reprint the early issues in the same way that they did with #1. I suspect that this will not happen.

 

I'm pretty sure you'll receive a variety of responses to your query, but here is my personal take.
I had a complete set in as new condition from #1 still w/the mailing envelope. At the time #1 came out, there was little or nothing like it regarding Ferrari. Remember, this was in the late '70's. The layout, subject matter, photography, etc. were heaven for a guy like myself hooked on Ferrari. Were they perfect? No, but there wasn't much competition. I loved getting those. Over the years, there has been multiple sources of Ferrari related periodicals. Some good, some not so much.

So as a collector, and only as a collector, you have to ask yourself is the acquisition worth it? Only you the collector can answer that. The information and photos from all those missing issues are probably available in other sources by now. So is the collection aspect what you need fulfilled, or the information provided by those now dated magazines? Are the old issues pricy? You bet. Collectables are. But in the end their 'just magazines'. Worth whatever someone is willing to pay. Is your collection that important to you?

I sold most of my collection several years ago. I do miss having the 'entire collection', but at some point, I decided I wanted them to go to a 'good home'.

Collections can be an expensive endeavor. Are you going to take your $$ with you when you're gone? Or are you going to enjoy your collection while you're here?

Sorry this took so long.
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You forgot a number of things.
Issue #1 came out in September 1978. That's 44 years ago. Publisher John W. Barnes, Jr., was 44 years younger than today. Same for his partner at the time, the legendary designer Charles W. "Chuck" Queener. Many fchatters weren't even born by that time. There were NO computers in 1978, no fax machines (only telex! if you had one in your company), no iphones, no ebay, no web, nothing. Just typewriters or handwritten letters. Hard to imagine for most people today. This meant that one had to write a letter on paper, go to the post office and then wait two or many more weeks for an answer (if any). Just to find out something about one particular car or model. Can you imagine? Think about this. Example: I started researching for my 250 LM book in 1977. I did not even have a typewriter back then! I handwrote letters to mechanics, drivers, team principals, journalists, owners, and dozens of other people just asking for information and hoping they would send me copies of documents and photos. This took me five years. My book "Ferrari 250 LM" was published by Osprey of London in 1983. I was 25 by that time. That book is now 39 years old and the research began 45 years ago, with HANDWRITTEN letters. Think about that. There was no facebook, no twitter, no fchat, no email, no cellphones, no tiktok and the like. Zero, nothing, nada.
With the introduction of (affordable!) personal computers and then email and all that, worldwide communication became so much easier. And for those in the classic car world it helped massively to discuss and communicate with other car freaks and enthusiasts. And don't forget, iphones are just about 15 years old now! So, basically, what I am saying is that prior to 1990/1995 communication was extremely slow around the globe. Which means that worldwide knowledge could not be that easily shared as we have it today. Computers, web and email etc have massively helped to find people, to easy communicate with everybody and to gather an immense wealth of information about the cars we all love.
Think about this and then you will understand that the level of knowledge back in 1978 was so much less/smaller than it is nowadays. Hopefully this will explain why early issues of Cavallino magazine are quite different. Same with Ferrari books. Standards and expectations plus knowledge (or lack thereof!) 50 years ago were totally different than today. Compare Hans Tanner's Ferrari Owners Handbook published by Floyd Clymer in 1960 or Anthony Pritchard's Ferrari V12 Sportscars (1970) with the Matthias Bartz Dino Compendium of 2022 or Doug Nye's fabulous book "GTO 64".

It must also be mentioned that after about two years of Cavallino magazine, around 1980, there were some economic difficulties for a while which prompted the publisher to slow down production (the mag didn't always come out every two months, there were some "stretches" and "interruptions" sometimes). However, Mr. Barnes, fortunately overcame these problems and the magazine grew steadily.

Marcel Massini

 

Thank you!

 

John. I thank you for your response. Hopefully your reply took less time than it took me to put my post together! I knew that this was perhaps a controversial topic but was hoping for a variety of responses and very much appreciate your "personal take". You have provided some wonderful insight.

I had meant to mention in my post that I recognise there was "nothing like it regarding Ferrari" at the time. When I first became passionate about Ferrari in 1989/90 (I realise this makes me a newbie) the only Ferrari specific magazine on my local newstand in the UK was Ferrari World and I loved that, despite what I can now see as its shortcomings. I had yet to discover the likes of Cavallino and Forza, the latter discovered and since forgotten!

Collecting is a funny old game and collectors the world over, of anything that we could care to mention, will all agree that we have a passion that will only be cured once we have every item which we crave. This could be stamps, coins, banknotes, Star Wars toys, birds eggs, Taylor Swift CDs or fossils. Some collections are more completable than others. I saw a short film once about someone who collected the numbers from trains. I suspect there are similar collectors in the USA. They saw the last one they needed to see, wrote the number in their book and cast the book aside, their collection complete. Someone else picked up the book and started crossing off the numbers as they saw the trains and so started another collection. This is what collectors do. As a collector of Cavallino magazines I do not wish to have a newstand copy and a subscriber copy of each issue although I would take my hat off to anyone who did! I am interested in the content and not the publication. I therefore do not crave a genuine #1 Cavallino as my reprinted edition provides the same information.

In response to your question: I guess it is the information aspect that needs to be fulfilled with me. This is what is important to me which is why I am prepared to continue with my collecting. If I do not have every copy I do not know what information I am missing out on! I do feel that over the years Cavallino has been an incredibly valuable resource and although some of the information is dated, available elsewhere and/or proven to be incorrect they have often corrected/updated things. There are so many occasions when an issue is quoted in an article elsewhere and I find it very frustrating when the issue quoted is not one I have.

I suspect that my collecting of the early copies of Cavallino will slow down but I would still like to have a complete set. I also suspect that there are many who will read this who understand my situation and who have already completed their collection, or want to, at whatever cost.

 

Another wonderful story by The 'Éminance Grice' of motor journalism, Doug Nye, in this months' Motor Sport:
Sixty years of the Ferrari 250 GTO: behind the wheel of King Crimson

 

Thank you for your reply which is probably as close to "inside information" as I will get. I am not sure when your first contribution was to Cavallino but know that your name appears very early on.

I do remember a world with no Facebook, Twitter, email, mobile phones and TikTok and from what I remember the world was a much better place to be. All this social media and www makes things very easy but there is not as much satisfaction as there was in the past. I imagine, as a young man, you were far more appreciative of a hand-written reply after a few weeks than you are today with a one line response to an email received after just a few seconds, even though the latter can be far more useful. I used to serve in the Royal Navy and, when deployed for months at a time, email was great but not as comforting as receiving an old fashioned letter from home or a loved one. I still prefer reading books and magazines to looking at stuff online and hope that I always will although I do recognise there are benefits in the electronic world. Sending film away in the mail and waiting a week for the photographs to return was far more exciting than todays digital photography where I can take a thousand pictures or more at an event and know instantly if the image is any good. I still remember the anticipation when photographs arrived back in the mail AND the disappointment when most, if not all, were total rubbish! This made me more selective of what I photographed and my disappointment now, that I missed so much back then, is even greater.

I know you have called yourself a dinosaur in the past and I am one too: a proud one! I remember seeing a guy at the Goodwood Revival (so fairly recently!) and he was using his phone to take a photograph. I had never seen such a thing! He was from a land with a J in the VIN and there was a crowd around watching him rather than looking at the cars. He could have been from another planet, such was the interest in a guy who was able to take pictures with his phone! I am not even sure I would have owned mobile phone at the time!

Times change (not always for the best), things move on (although this does not always equal progress), Cavallino magazine is better and the dinosaurs amongst us remember how things used to be!

 

I see that a special edition on the 308/328 from Enzo magazine is due next month. French language only. See here https://www.ngpresse.fr/product-page/enzo-hors-s%C3%A9rie-ferrari-308-pr%C3%A9vente although not much information.

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I have a complete set of Cavillino magazines with one a photo copy.

It is complete except that I did not renew my subscription a month or two ago.
Did I make a mistake?

 

Octane 227.

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I just received 225 yesterday. The math would imply that it takes two months for a magazine to get from the UK to the US.

 

They spelled the name of "Remordu" as Guy Hansez where I always thought that it was Guy Ancez. Of course in French the letter H is not pronounced, but what is the exact spelling of his name?

 

Baron Guy Hansez it is (Remordu).

Marcel Massini

 

Yes and No! I stopped at issue 180 and sometimes regret. I will not restart to complete again, too much trouble. So if you like the contents and actually read the magazine, then continue.